Reptilia · Squamata
Platyceps najadumEichwald, 1831
Dahl’s Whip Snake
Photograph by Matej Vucić, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating snake from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 152 cm nose to tail.
Also called Slender Whip Snake.
Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Platyceps
- Grows to
- 1520mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives
- Terrestrial
Longer than 89% of all colubrid snakes anyone has measured.
The bar is the rank itself: its length is the share of the family this animal exceeds. The chart below is the family’s real spread, on a logarithmic scale because body length here runs from 98 to 3,800 mm. The solid rule is this animal. Every bar is a count of real species, and nothing on this figure is estimated.
What is known
30 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.
Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.
Standing in the world
- Still living
- Extant
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2008
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Pupil
- Round
- Fangs
- At the back of the mouth
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 1000mm3 ft 3 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1520mm5 ft
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 205.5g7.2 oz
Schatti 2004: max 1400, 920 mm SVL; Naumov et al. 2020: max 152 cm, Dunayev and Orlova 2023 (max 100 cm SVL)
snakes only in this source
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Grassland, Rocky, Shrubland
- Biome
- Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests
- Active season · months of the year
- 6–9months
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2500m
- Range size
- 1,594,676km²
insects, rodents and lizards (Kamali 2020), mainly lizards, much less frequently rodents and insects (Dunayev and Orlova 2023, see also Albarwari 2021), lizards, rodents and birds (Khashab 2022)
Active (O'Shea 2018)
(Shine 1980c, O'Shea 2018, Kamali 2020, Albarwari 2021), Diurnal to Crepuscular (Dunayev and Orlova 2023)
Shine 1980c, Albarwari 2021
0-2200 (O'Shea 2018), max 2500 (Kamali 2020), I saw it near sea level (~100 m?) in Greece, black sea coast to 1600 (Dunayev and Orlova 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 9.5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 3–16eggs
Feldman et al. 2015
3-16 (Geniez 2018, O'Shea 2018, Khashab 2022, Albarwari 2021), max 16 (Dunayev and Orlova 2023)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Platyceps najadum albitemporalis (DAREVSKY & ORLOV 1994) Platyceps najadum dahlii (FITZINGER 1826) Platyceps najadum kalymnensis (SCHNEIDER 1979) Platyceps najadum najadum (EICHWALD 1831)
- Described by
- Eichwald
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1831
- Type locality
- Azerbaijan
Keeping one
5 ft × 2 ft 6 in × 3 ft 9 in(152 × 76 × 114 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes snakes as a fraction of total length: 1 × 0.5 × 0.75.
Mindestanforderungen an die Haltung von Reptilien (Sachverständigengutachten), German Federal Ministry for Nutrition, Agriculture and Forestry, Animal Welfare Division, 10 January 1997. The standard states these floor areas are recommendations rather than binding limits.
From this animal’s own total length of 5 ft (1520 mm), at 1 × 0.5 × 0.75 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Dahl’s Whip Snake. Rather than repeat a number from a care sheet, this page leaves it out.
Feeding
A prey item should be between the same width as the widest part of the snake's body and about 1.5 times that width.
Widely used across snake husbandry references. An alternative formulation gives prey at 10-15% of the snake's body mass. This is established practice, not a measurement.
22kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 205 g, the heaviest recorded for Dahl’s Whip Snake — so it is the top of the range, not a figure for a particular animal. Weigh yours and the number will be lower.
An upper estimate, not a feeding target, and not veterinary advice. The equation covers only what an animal burns staying alive, so a growing, gravid or recovering animal needs more — and it was measured on wild animals, which move far more than one in an enclosure. Body condition and a vet who knows the species are what a feeding decision should rest on. Where this comes from.
What nobody knows
These are not gaps in our research. No scientific dataset records them for this species — and saying so is information you cannot get from a reference that simply leaves a field out.
- — Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult male mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult mean
- — Female length · mean, nose to tail
- — Length nose to tail · adult male mean
- — Length nose to tail · adult mean
- — Largest female · snout to vent
- — Largest male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Hatchling length · snout to vent
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — Body mass at hatching
- — Longest recorded life
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — Clutches in a year
- — Clutches a year · fewest
- — Clutches a year · most
- — First breeds from · youngest recorded
- — First breeds by · oldest recorded
- — Hatchling length · smallest recorded
- — Hatchling length · largest recorded
- — Age at first breeding · female
- — Mature from · youngest recorded
- — Mature by · oldest recorded
- — Size at maturity · smallest recorded
- — Size at maturity · largest recorded
- — Venomous
- — Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Sex decided by
- — Population trend
- — Red List criteria
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
Others in Colubridae
Take this data
Everything on this page is available as data under CC BY 4.0 — use it freely, credit it, no permission needed.
This species as JSON · the whole dataset
Cite this page
The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia (2026). Platyceps najadum. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/platyceps-najadum
@misc{platyceps_najadum_2026,
title = {Platyceps najadum},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/platyceps-najadum}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.